Of Mice and Men
by Amyli
Summary: *Chapter 2 up!* Anyone who's written about Hell has obviously never died - because they don't know the half of it, so a rather disgruntled 'ghost' thinks. And, with this fatal thought, he embarks on a quest to straighten things out once and for all...
1. Of Mice and Men

First, this isn't a HHG2G fanfic in the strictest since of the word, but it does take place in Douglas Adams' universe, and uses a few of his concepts. I'd also like to say that it has the same quality of humor, but I'm not sure about that... you could always review and tell me.  
  
The passage on towels was written by the hugely talented, lamentedly late Douglas Adams. So don't sue me. Or if you must, take that train, get off at the last stop, and complain to the mouse who will meet you in Hell. Oops... Did I say Hell? Did you just disappear in a puff of absence-of-thought? How sad. How lamentable. You know what? It's your own zarking fault. I told you that I didn't own it.  
  
Still around? Oh, good. Must mean you're smart enough to read the story. Here - catch. That will be Guide entry 273942.  
  
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He seemed to remember someone, somewhere, saying that at death, your life flashed before your eyes. They were wrong. He'd have to remember to tell them, if by some odd twist of fate he ever chanced to meet them.  
  
In point of fact, it greatly resembled a dingy subway tunnel - right down to the advertisements lining its walls. He didn't speed through the darkness, either, but moved annoying slowly, with lots of painful jolts.  
  
He wondered, absentmindedly, whether he'd ever purchased a ticket, and whether he could ask for a refund on the other end. He'd never liked subways, anyway.  
  
He was further reminded of this fact as something came to a slamming halt, ramming him into what felt unpleasantly like a hot, sticky vinyl seat. Moments later, he was ejected into a pale, sickly pink landscape.  
  
He winced at the pain in his side - and then wondered how he had a side to hurt, since all the religious people he'd ever had the pleasure of trying not to listen to had seemed pretty clear on the point that the body was left behind after death. The aching then made him perversely pleased, because it proved that that endlessly old half-deaf nun who'd been his elementary school teacher had been wrong. He only wished he could go back to tell her.  
  
He got to his feet, and prompted hit his head on something hard. When he tried to duck away, he found that something sticky had become entangled in his hair.  
  
He cursed, loudly.  
  
It took half an hour and quite a few exclamations of pain to free himself, but only two seconds to back up far enough to read the sign. It read, in pale pink letters: 'Welcome to Heck', and someone had stuck their discarded gum to the bottom of the sign.  
  
"Welcome to Heck?"  
  
"Politically Correct Hell," a squeaky voice amended from somewhere below him.  
  
"I'm not religious," he told the voice shortly.  
  
"That fact is not of large consequence, except for the resulting alteration in your fate. You are presently existing in Politically Correct Hell, more commonly referred to by the native sinners as Heck. Incidentally, this fact is also the reason that your immediate surroundings may be optically described as being of a pale crimson hue."  
  
He'd been looking around during this rather prolonged speech, and while he had not yet found his addressor, he had been quick to notice the oppressive humidity. He ran a hand across his brow. "You mean that Heck is pink instead of red to keep the religious nuts happy?"  
  
"That statement is correct in the overall meaning that it conveys, except that it is the humans of a non-religious frame of mind who have imposed these requirements."  
  
"Yeah, if you say so. I'm guessing that it's just hot instead of swimming in fire and brimstone for the same reason?" After a few minutes of listening, he'd gotten better at mentally translating the convoluted explanations.  
  
"You are once again possessed of the correct idea - wait, did you say you weren't religious?"  
  
Something nudged his leg; he glanced down, and was even more startled to see a mouse peering inquisitively up at him, waiting expectantly for his reply. That didn't sound right, even in his head. He tried it out aloud. "You're a talking mouse?"  
  
The mouse huffed indignantly. "On the contrary, I am a member of a race of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings!" He received the impression that it would have looked down its rather pointy nose at him, had it been of the height to do so.  
  
"Yeah, but you still look like a talking mouse. What's your name?"  
  
"Ierdymenshunelbeinghuiznottamowse," the mouse told him, speaking very fast.  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"Ierdymenshunelbeinghuiznottamowse."  
  
"No, I wanted to know what your name is."  
  
The mouse gave him a long and very hard look. "The word which I have now repeated twice is my name."  
  
He frowned. The mouse-or-not-mouse seemed totally dead-pan, but... "Did your parents have a sense of humor?"  
  
It pulled itself to its full height of four inches to glare at him. "I am most deeply insulted that you would even dream of insinuating such a completely dreadful thing."  
  
"Sorry, sorry..." He should have guessed that it would react like that. "So," he went on, changing the subject. "Like I said, I'm not particularly religious."  
  
"Oh, yes!" The not-a-mouse looked reproving. "All that ridiculous 'mouse' business - your constant questioning made me forget my point." It made 'mouse' into something unspeakably rude. "And you really shouldn't be asking questions, you know. That's my job."  
  
"Non-religious and all that?" he prodded, since that it seemed to be going once more off track. He was really rather curious why it was so important - could he get out of Heck if he didn't believe in it?"  
  
"Yes, yes..." The not-a-mouse looked him over. "I should have guessed, since you have a body and all."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Not everyone in Heck is substantial. You think, therefore you are - and frightening numbers of people don't think."  
  
"And religious fanatics don't think?" he guessed.  
  
"Exactly." The not-a-mouse beamed. "But the few inhabitants who are substantial, capable of thinking, are usually drafted into a more productive position." It cocked its head at him. "I hope you don't get spacesick."  
  
"Spacesick?"  
  
"That is, indeed, what I said."  
  
"I've never had the occasion to find out," he told it drily.  
  
The not-a-mouse frowned. "Oh, yes, your race isn't going to discover commercial space travel until... well, you haven't yet, I suppose, or you would have probably have flown before, unless you avoided flying because you got spacesick - you don't get spacesick, do you?"  
  
Was there even any point? "No," he told it shortly.  
  
"Oh, that's wonderful," it exclaimed, giving him a vague smile. "Now - you wouldn't have a towel with you, would you?"  
  
He frowned. It seemed a terribly irrelevant question, and he thought about saying as much. Then, recalling how easily the not-a-mouse seemed to go off on tangents, he decided against it. The truth was, he'd never really thought about towels, except a feeling of vague and fleeting annoyance when he'd just gotten out of the shower and remembered that he hadn't washed the towels yet. And, when he was six, a very worn but much-used once-fluffy blue towel of his had gone missing. He hadn't really cared one way or another, but his parents had been rather annoyed because they were, after all, at the beach, and what was one supposed to do at the beach without a towel?  
  
"Should I?" he asked, deciding this was the safest answer.  
  
It tutted concernedly. "Of course you should. Haven't you ever read... No, no, you haven't, because you haven't died before. That's why I'm recruiting you. No matter." It reached up into a particularly pink patch of humidity, and pulled down a rather large, worn blue towel, which it handed to him. When he unfolded it, it released an astounding amount of sand onto his clothes.  
  
A thought occurred to him; he stared suspiciously at the mouse. "Where did you get that?"  
  
The not-a-mouse tried to shrug, found that this was rather difficult when, for all intents and purposes, one was a mouse, and dismissed it all as Somebody Else's Problem - and it rather thought it was God's, and it certainly wouldn't be voting for God again in the next election, thank you very much. "I pulled it from a point in time and space in which there used to be a towel," it explained.  
  
This didn't really clarify things, but caused him to wonder whether the citizens of Heck had also purloined the copious numbers of socks and other miscellaneous clothing that also always seemed to be missing. He couldn't think just what one would do with mountains of unmatched socks and other assorted laundry, except that it would, in all probability, smell appropriately like Hell.  
  
"Here," the not-a-mouse said, interrupting his train of thought - probably a good thing, the interruption, since the engine seemed to have strayed quite a distance from its tracks, towing the thought-cars after it. "You'll need this. 'Towels' should be entry 138232," it added helpfully.  
  
The proffered object, which he took, looked rather like a very small, compact, if slightly grubby, laptop computer, and the words 'Don't Panic!' were printed in large, friendly letters upon its surface. "I like this... er, thing," he approved, opening it; inside, the keyboard and digital display screen also seemed comfortingly familiar. This was probably a good thing, because at this point, it lost all resemblance to anything - book or computer - made by natives of Earth. The difference lay in the content - and this was astounding, amazing, and slightly disconcerting.  
  
"'A towel,'" he read, "'is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.'" He paused. "Really? Is life always like this? Or rather, is death always like this? If so, I think my life has been seriously misguided. I mean, there was no need to strive for ideals, to try to improve the quality of life for my fellow man... and, well, all that."  
  
"Often, yes, probably, and no," the not-a-mouse agreed. "Keep reading."  
  
"'Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you -- daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough...'"  
  
Around this point, he lapsed into silence. Looking back on the scene, he would think that it was extraordinarily strange that he thought nothing of the bantering of names of what were quite clearly other planets. Since he was not, however, psychic, he thought nothing of it, and would continue to do so for some time.  
  
No, it was the next paragraph that really confused him.  
  
"'More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the might accidentally have "lost." What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.'"  
  
Whereupon he stopped reading, and looked at the not-a-mouse. "That paragraph," he observed, "mentioned the word 'hitchhiker' or a variant of it no less that three times."  
  
"Very true."  
  
"It also seemed to imply that the correct title should be (galactic) hitchhiker, or one who hitchhikes across the galaxy."  
  
"Most observant of you."  
  
"Well," he exploded, "I'm not a hitchhiker! I'm certainly not..."  
  
"Ah," said the not-a-mouse, "but you will be."  
  
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So who the... er... Heck... is this random dead guy, anyway? Does the not-a-mouse have a name capable of being pronounced without dying of aphyxiation half way through? And what's all this 'hitchhiker' nonsense, anyway?  
  
Being the annoying author that I am, I'm doing to end this chapter in a manner typical of annoying authors, and leave you hanging. Towels from which to escape from the cliff will be provided upon receiving a review. Story will be continued when/if a sufficient number of readers escape the fate of the cliff to make it worth the telling. 


	2. A Rose by Any Other Name

Required disclaimer: I do not own anything pertaining to the HHG2G. I do own the not-a-mouse and hitchhiker-to-be, but... well, it doesn't seem likely that I'm ever going to be making millions off them. If you must sue, however, please do so now - just on the off-chance that I'm rich in twenty years. 

On another note, I should really be able to come up with original chapter titles... However, I do think this line is appropriate - you'll see why. 

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"First," the not-a-mouse told him, "You need a name." 

"I thought I had a name." 

"You did," it agreed, "but you don't remember it now, do you?" 

"Well... No." Strange that his name, of all things, eluded him, when he remembered... He thought he remembered... Well, he didn't remember all that much, really, and frightening amounts of what he did remember had to do with, strangely enough, digital watches and microwaves. 

"That's because your name belonged to your life on Earth," the not-a-mouse told him wisely. "Everyone has a true name, you see, but they were written in the language of the Universe, and illiteracy in Universal has become very high lately, for government reasons. So all the planets have been forced to develop their own languages, and quite a few of them have quite a few languages per planet, and, well, it's all very confusing. But all this means that you have to have a different name on each planet, in each life, and it's vitally important that you use the right one, or dire things will happen." 

"Why?" 

"A rose by any other name does not smell as sickeningly putrid," the not-a-mouse quoted, leaving him sputtering and wondering if _they_ were speaking the same language, or if there was simply something fundamentally wrong with the universe and he'd never noticed. He decided on the latter, and subsequently decided not to comment on that rather ambiguous proverb. 

"So no pressure?" he asked wrily. The not-a-mouse looked confused. 

"On the contrary, the air pressure is precisely the same as it was five seconds ago: to be exact, several times the pressure exerted on Earth, due to the fact that Heck is noticeably closer to the center of the planet." It cocked its head. "Or was that not what you meant? I must admit, it doesn't seem very relevant in light of our previous topic of discussion." 

Maybe you have to be human - have been human? - to understand sarcasm. "Never mind," he told it. "So how am I supposed to know the right name?" he asked, hoping for a simpler answer. When it came, it was decidely simpler, but rather unappealing. 

"You swallow this slug," he was informed, and a large neon-orange slug was produced from mid-air. "It's the companion to the Babel Fish, and very newly developed - we don't have a name for it yet, but it's common knowledge that when swallowed, it will stick in your throat and alter the words you speak into the language used by whoever you're speaking too. You'll also have a Babel Fish, which will allow you to understand everything you hear, but the slug is especially useful when dealing with primitive planets who may not yet have Babel fish." A small, yellowish fish appeared beside the slug. 

"Now, if you'll just swallow that slug," the not-a-mouse urged, seeing that he hadn't, "and stick the Babel Fish in your ear, you can pick a name that seems right to you, and it will automatically be altered when you speak it so that it seems right to everyone else you might be speaking to." 

Swallow the... slug... Oh, what the Heck, he decided, and popped it into his mouth. Incongruously enough, its slime tasted like chicken. The Babel Fish was equally unpleasant, he observed, as it slithered wetly into his ear. But finally both species were settled. He looked expectantly at the not-a-mouse. 

"It really isn't worse that the billions of bacteria that live inside you," the not-a-mouse told him, presumably trying to be comforting. "Now, if you'll just say your name... Random syllables work best," it added, at his blank look. 

He wasn't feeling very creative, so the last suggestion was appreciated. "Riariysu," he decided, after a moment. And then: "What did that sound like to you?" 

"Riariysu," the not-a-mouse told him promptly. "Of course, your Babel Fish is translating, so what you said and what I heard and what I said and you heard probably aren't anything alike at all, but that doesn't matter." 

"Hmm." He gave it a speculative look. "I think I'm going to call you Dym." 

"Excuse me?" 

"Dym. It's easier than 'not-a-mouse'." 

"My name," the not-a-mouse told him coldly, "is not 'not-a-mouse', but Ierdymenshunelbeinghuiznottamowse, as you know perfectly well." 

"Wonderful. But," he went on, feeling proud of this bit of logic, "it really doesn't matter what I call you, _Dym_, because my slug is translating what I say into whatever you're supposed to be hearing. If you're hearing 'Dym', maybe you are 'Dym'." 

The not-a - Dym huffed. It cleared its throat and huffed again - even more huffily, if anything. 

Riariysu smiled. 

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A/N: Very short chapter, that - my apologies! 

*hands large, blue towels to Fireblade and Nerina Dragonstongue* Compliments of the Guide. ^_^ 

_Nerina_ - Dym's a hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional being who is not a mouse - didn't he tell you? ~_^ 

Let's see... All who review will receive a neon orange translation slug - very handy on your travels to some of the slightly less civilized planets, i.e., Earth, where people are still inconsiderate enough not to speak your language. Also, if anyone comes up with a name for said slug, you'll receive... well, something nice, once I think of it. 


End file.
